River Residents Do A Little Dock Fishing ‘Roundup’ Reclaims Docks Torn Loose By Thaws, Floods

People who live along the Pend Oreille River always seem to be rounding up something.

In July 1993, it was a herd of buffaloes that escaped from the Kalispel Indian Reservation. Saturday, it was a fleet of boat docks that sailed down the river to Box Canyon Dam, three miles north of Ione.

The Pend Oreille County Public Utility District opened its corral Saturday morning so people could reclaim nine docks that dam workers lassoed out of the river with a clamshell crane over the past week and a half. People had no trouble identifying their strays, and only one remained unclaimed when the two-hour session ended.

Docks were wrenched from their moorings along a 25-mile stretch of the river, starting Feb. 13, when a sudden thaw and spring-like runoff broke up the ice on the river.

Steve Matthias said a neighbor told him she heard an “awesome” sound when the thick ice began cracking.

“She said, when the ice came, these docks went four or five feet up in the air and away they went,” said Matthias, a Spokane resident who has a cabin at Riveredge Estates, about 15 miles south of the dam.

Matthias and his wife, Sue, came to the Great Dock Roundup with fellow Spokane resident Gary Pierce, who has a cabin next to theirs. They shared a borrowed trailer to haul their wayward docks home.

Pierce came last week to pick up the small boat that was still tied on top of the dock when it landed in front of the dam. He considered the rowboat’s survival amazing in view of the force that snapped steel dock-mooring cables like twine.

The solidly constructed Pierce and Matthias docks were a little battered around the edges, but in remarkably good condition. Many were not so fortunate.

Less-substantial docks were ground to pieces by giant chunks of ice that piled up 15 feet thick and swirled in front of the dam. Other docks went over the spillway.

“There were several sad faces when they didn’t find their dock here and realized it had gone over the spillway,” dam electrician Allan Emrick said.

Hydroelectric Director Dick Arkills wasn’t sure how many docks went over, but it was quite a few. He said flotation barrels and splinters were about all that made it to Boundary Dam, 15 miles downstream at the Canadian border.

“When they went through, all you would see was a big string of barrels going down the river,” Arkills said.

However, E.R. “Moe” Mosby said one pontoon dock seemed to be in pretty good shape Friday morning when it floated upside-down past his restaurant three miles downstream at Metaline, Wash.

SK Marine, 30 miles upstream from Box Canyon Dam, was doing a good business Saturday as battered pontoon docks started rolling in for repairs.

One of them belonged to Republic, Wash., residents Gordon and Nancy McIntyre, who have a cabin about nine miles south of the dam.

The McIntyres hope insurance will cover the damage to their dock. Not likely, said Pierce, who is a Spokane Valley insurance agent and couldn’t get coverage for his own dock.

Colville real estate broker Kelly Davis said he would be too embarrassed to file a claim for the damage to his $2,800, 24-foot pontoon dock.

“I looked at it that Sunday night before it happened and said there’s no way this dock is going to get ripped out of here,” he recalled. “I had a chance to pull it out.”

So what will folks on the Pend Oreille round up next?

“Well, we’ve talked about having a squawfish roundup for our Downriver Days celebration,” Arkills said.

, DataTimes